1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a television signal processing device having receiving means for receiving at least one television signal in at least one receiving channel receivable by the receiving means, and for receiving at least one information signal, and having television program information determining means for determining and storing television program information contained in one or more information signals and relating to television programs of at least one receivable receiving channel, and having display signal generating means for automatically generating a display signal containing detected television program information of a television program whose television signal is currently received by the receiving means.
2. Description of the Related Art
Such a television signal processing device of the type defined in the opening paragraph, included in a television set, is known from the document is known from European Patent Application EP 0 337 336 A2. The known television set has receiving means with which it is possible to receive a television signal, which can be reproduced as a television program on a television set which can be connected from a television stationxe2x80x94as, for example, ARD, ZDF or CNNxe2x80x94in a receiving channel. A received television signal can be displayed as a television program on a viewing screen of the television set.
The receiving means is further adapted to receive an information signal transmitted in blanking intervals of a television signal. The information signal conveys digital data including VPS information (Video Program System) and teletext information. Each television program received as a television signal is identified by given VPS information. VPS information also includes television signal identification information which identifies a television signal and by means of which the television station, which makes a television signal available and which transmits this signal, can be identified. Teletext information of a television signal may include television program information about television programs of one or more receiving channels which can be received, for example, within the next week Television program information can be formed by digital data representative of television signal identification information, the date, the starting and ending time, the title as well as the VPS information of a television program.
The known television set further comprises television program information determining means for determining and storing television program information contained in the information signal. For this purpose, the television program information determining means uses a television program information determining algorithm in which each receivable receiving channel, in which a television signal containing an information signal in the blanking intervals can be received, is successively received by the receiving means for a given period of time in order to determine and store television program information for receivable television signals of as many television programs as possible.
The known television set is then adapted to compare VPS information currently received by the receiving means with VPS information determined and stored by the television program information determining means in the television set, and is adapted to determine television program information of television program currently received by the receiving means. Subsequently, a display signal generating means is automatically adapted to generate a display signal which can be reproduced on the viewing screen of the television set as an on-screen display to display the title of the television program currently received by the television signal. Thus, a user of the known television set is informed about the title of the television program at the beginning of each television program received by the television set.
Moreover, by the actuation of a key of the remote control device of the known television set, the television set can display a list of receiving suggestions which contains the titles and starting times of television programs and television signal identification information of the television stations from which these television programs can be received currently or shortly. When the receiving means can receive, for example, 40 different television signals in 40 receiving channels, such a list of receiving suggestions will have up to 80 rows, a currently receivable television program and a shortly receivable television program, i.e., starting, for example, at the latest within half an hour, being given for each receiving channel. With the aid of the list of receiving suggestions, the user can select a currently or shortly receivable television program he/she is interested in without briefly viewing each currently receivable television program of each receiving channel by actuation of a Channel Up key or Channel Down key.
It has been found that, with the known television set, the automatic display of the title of the television program of the currently received receiving channel is very informative for the user, but that this does not provide any indication about which television programs are currently receivable in other receiving channels or which television programs are shortly receivable in other receiving channels. As a result, the user will very often view a television program which is only of mediocre interest to him/her, while, at the same time, a television program which is highly interesting for him could be received in another receiving channel.
This problem is neither solved by means of the list of receiving suggestions which can be displayed by the actuation of a key of the remote control device of the known television set because the user probably reads this list of receiving suggestions, which may have many rows, one time at the beginning of an evening of television in order to pick a television program which may be of interest to him but will definitely not do so every half an hour, although this would be necessary in order not to miss the beginning of an interesting television program. Furthermore, scrolling through a list of receiving suggestions resembling a computer list is a nuisance for a user who is not familiar with a computer, for which reason the list of receiving suggestions is used only seldom by users of the known television set.
It is an object of the invention to eliminate the aforementioned problems and to provide an improved television signal processing device of the type defined in the opening paragraph. In a television signal processing device of the type defined in the opening paragraph, this object is achieved in that the television signal processing device further comprises selection means for selecting at least one television program having title information contained in the detected television program information containing at least one given keyword and which is currently receivable or will be shortly receivable by the receiving means as a television signal in another than the currently received receiving channel, and in that display signal generating means automatically generates a display signal containing television program information of the at least one selected television program. Thus, it is achieved that a display signal, which is reproducible as an on-screen display, can be displayed automatically by a television signal processing device included in, for example, a television set, this display signal indicating the title of a current starting television program and the television signal identification information or the receiving channel on which this television program is receivable when the receiving means of the television set currently receives a television signal in another receiving channel. Such an on-screen display can be shown, for example, for 5 seconds. This has the advantage that the user""s attention is drawn to the start of a television program which otherwise he/she might have missed because the television set has been tuned to receive a television signal with different television signal identification information in another receiving channel.
A further advantage is that the user is only reminded of those television programs whose titles contain at least one keyword which is characteristic of the user""s field of interest. As a result of this, the user is reminded automatically and in due time of the beginning of television programs which are of interest to him.
In a television signal processing device as described above, it has proven to be advantageous that the television signal processing device further comprises keyword detection means for detecting at least one item of title fragment information of title information of a television program received by the receiving means as a keyword, and in that at least one detected keyword can be used as a given keyword by the selection means. This yields the advantage that each title of a television program received by the user by means of the television signal processing device because he is interested in this television program is used for determining at least one keyword characteristic of the field of interest of the user. Advantageously, a keyword is then determined automatically without the intervention of the user.
In a television signal processing device as described above, it has proven to be advantageous that a keyword memory is provided for storing at least one keyword detected by the keyword detection means. This has the advantage that all the automatically determined keywords are stored and thus a database of keywords is obtained which is a very accurate representation of the user""s interest profile with regard to the television programs viewed by the user and what future television programs he/she is likely to be interested in. A list drawn up by the selection means, giving receiving suggestions of television programs whose titles contain at least one of the stored keywords, will therefore include a multitude of television programs which are of interest to the user. On the other hand, the list of receiving suggestions only gives television programs which are of interest to the user, which has the advantage that the list of receiving suggestions has limited number of rows.
In a television signal processing device as described above, it has proven to be advantageous that the keyword memory is adapted to store a recurrence count for each keyword, this recurrence count being incremented upon each further detection of this keyword by the keyword detection means, and in that the selection means applies only those keywords whose recurrence counts have values which exceed a selection threshold value which depends on at least one other value of a recurrence count stored in the keyword memory. As a result of this, it is achieved that the selection means only selects those television programs whose titles include a keyword which has already been detected comparatively frequently and is, therefore, of particular interest to the user. Thus, changing interests of the user are taken into account automatically because the count of the occurrence of a keyword as, for example, xe2x80x9cMagnumxe2x80x9d is not incremented if no further installment of the serial xe2x80x9cMagnumxe2x80x9d is received.
In a television signal processing device as described above, it has proven to be advantageous that keywords whose recurrence counts have values below a minimum threshold value are periodically erasable from the keyword memory by the keyword detection means. As a result of this, it is achieved that only rarely detected keywords are erased periodically, for example, once a month, from the keyword memory, and the storage capacity of the keyword memory is thus utilized effectively. Moreover, it is thus achieved that only those keywords which have been detected not too long ago are used for determining television programs which are likely to interest the user.
In a television signal processing device as described above, it has proven to be advantageous that the keyword detection means detects only title fragment information having a minimum number of characters as keywords. Thus, it is achieved that words which are used in a title and which form title fragment informationxe2x80x94such as, for example, xe2x80x9cthexe2x80x9d, xe2x80x9casxe2x80x9d or xe2x80x9cinxe2x80x9dxe2x80x94are not used for determining keywords if they comprise, for example, only three or less letters and also occur in other meanings in a plurality of words and are, therefore, not suitable for describing the field of interest of the user.
In a television signal processing device as described above, it has proven to be advantageous that an exclusion memory is provided for storing at least title fragment information which is to be excluded as a keyword by the keyword detection means. Thus, it is achieved that certain words which form title fragment informationxe2x80x94such as, for example, xe2x80x9cwhenxe2x80x9d or xe2x80x9cmaybexe2x80x9dxe2x80x94are not defined as keywords because these words are not suitable for describing the field of interest of the user.
In a television signal processing device as described above, it has proven to be advantageous that the receiving means is adapted to receive an information signal from a computer data network. Thus, it is achieved that an information signal containing television program information can be received by the television signal processing device from a computer data network, such as the Internet, a cable TV system or via a data link to a computer.
In a television signal processing device as described above, it has proven to be advantageous that the receiving means is adapted to receive an information signal in blanking intervals of a received television signal, this information signal containing teletext information which can be displayed on display means, and in that at least title fragment information of the teletext information can be marked manually and can thus be defined as a keyword. Thus, the advantage is obtained that television program information can also be derived from teletext information of one or more television signals. Furthermore, a user can mark words or character strings forming title fragment information in teletext pages, and can thus be selected as keywords. This method of manually selecting a keyword is substantially simpler than entering a keyword by the actuation of remote control keys to which a letter of the alphabet has been assigned.
It has proven to be advantageous to include a television signal processing device as described above, in a recording arrangement having recording means for recording a processed received television signal of a television program, characterized in that keyword detection means is provided for detecting at least one item of title fragment information of title information of a television program received as a processed received television signal recorded by the recording arrangement as at least one keyword, and in that at least one detected keyword can be used as a given keyword by the selection means. In the case of a television signal processing device included in a recording arrangement, this yields the advantage that only character strings forming title fragment information of the titles of television programs recorded by means of the recording arrangement, are defined as keywords, which ensures that they characterize the field of interest of the user.
In a recording arrangement as described above, it has proven to be advantageous that display signal generating means is adapted to be also activated manually so as to generate a display signal representing television program information of selected television programs, and in that the display signal can be applied to display means capable of displaying a list of recording suggestions containing television program information of at least one selected television program, and in that television program information of one of the selected and displayed television programs can be marked manually by recording programming means and the recording arrangement is thereby programmable to record the television program thus marked. A user can then actuate a suggestion programming key of the recording arrangement, which enables display signal generating means to generate a display signal representing a list of recording suggestions, this signal being displayable as a list of recording suggestions. By the actuation of a marking key, one of the selected television programs given in the list of recording suggestions can be marked manually by the user, and the recording arrangement can thus be programmed so as to record the marked television program. This yields a particularly simple method of programming the recording arrangement in order to record a selected television program.
The afore-mentioned as well as further aspects of the invention will be apparent from the embodiment described hereinafter by way of example and will be elucidated with reference to this embodiment.